Submitted by the Lopez Island Library

Join us Wednesday, June 26, at 11 a.m. for the 39th Annual Teddy Bear Picnic at the Lopez Island Library. The picnic will be held in the library’s backyard, under the apple trees. This special event is held each year in honor of Helen Anderson, who was a retired schoolteacher with a passion for encouraging children to pursue learning and reading, and was instrumental from 1968 to 1990 in establishing programs and materials for children in the Lopez Library. She read stories to the children each week and frequented regional bookstores looking for used books to help build the Lopez Library’s children’s collection. Many adults who were raised on Lopez will tell you that they learned to love reading as children because of her. Anderson began the tradition of the Teddy Bear Picnic in 1978. In 1986 the children’s room of the library was dedicated to her. Every year the Teddy Bear Picnic includes children’s songs and stories. This year, the picnic will be hosted by the library’s youth services librarian, Ingrid Vliet, and the library’s resident accordion player (and IT support specialist), Sam Bernardi. This will be the 39th year that the Picnic has taken place at the library. It will feature singalong songs, storytelling and refreshments (because that’s the way the teddy bears have their picnic). Mr. Bear will be visiting the picnic too. Bring your favorite teddy bear, or borrow one of ours, and come ready to sing and dance with Vliet and Bernardi.